abortion-rights. >> we need to do something with guns. a lot of innocent people losing their lives. it must stop. >> i would like to hear them talk about childcare as well as housing prices. that's the future. i would like to know how best i can go into that in the future. >> voices 2024. be a part of the conversation. >> next, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu hosting a news conference in jerusalem after the recent killing of six hostages by hamas. he discussed the importance of control of a strip of land along the border of gaza and egypt and blamed the failure in hostage negotiations on hamas. he expressed condolences for the

hostages and their families. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] the cease-fire and hostage negotiations on hamas. he expressed condolences for the dead hostages and their families. >> good evening. is real is experiencing days -- israel is experiencing days of horror, sorrow and rage. a week ago, we experienced such horror. yesterday i visited the family

of one of the hostages murdered in cold blood. a day earlier i spoke to several of the families of these murdered hostages. it tarries your heart out. -- it tears your heart out. i said to them that i am sorry. i apologized that we did not get them out. we worked so hard to get them. we were close but we did not. families worried about their loved ones to families grieving for their fallen beloved. that sentiment i know because i belong to that family but it is

a horror. we also lost brave policeman and brave soldiers who are on the gaza front. and they are brave -- and we pray for their families as well. all our people do. on october 7, we experienced the worst savagery in this century. on october 7, we experienced the worst savagery on the jewish people since the holocaust. these savages massacred her our people. 1200 civilians. they beheaded our men. they raped our women and murdered them. they burned babies alive.

they took 255 of our people, hostages to their underground dungeons. and that is a horror the world saw and responded to initially. it is important we remember it but we were given a reminder. a terrible reminder. last week, when these savages murdered six of our hostages in cold blood. they whittled them with -- they riddled them with bullets and they shot each of them in the head. of them several times -- some of them several times. and these are the savages, these are the terrorists that i ran planted next to our border and elsewhere. and we are committed to defeating them.

to extricating this people from our midst. -- this evil from our midst. i want to give your readers and viewers some context. often you see maps of israel. you think it is a goliath. i would like to give you first and overview of where israel is. this is the middle east. this is the entire arab world. this is israel. it is one of the world's tiniest countries. i give it the thumb test. it is a tiny country. it is one of the tiniest countries on the planet. it is 1/10 of 1% of the territory of the arab world.

maybe it is 2/10 of 1%. it goes from the river. the river is right here. to the sea, the mediterranean sea. when hamas is talking about liberating palestine from the river to the sea, what they are saying is destroyed israel. the entire width of this probably around the width of the washington beltway. at its widest point about 50 miles right here. tiny. here is gaza. the red thing you see here. that is gaza. i went to zoom in. when i zoom in, remember how tiny this is. remember the distance. take a look. here is enlarged. this is israel. this is the met attorney and see. the jordan river is right here. this is egypt and the sinai desert. look at gaza. where is gaza? gaza is implanted in this tiny country 30 miles from tel aviv.

40 miles from our capital, jerusalem. 30 miles from brush of. gaza is within spitting distance to them. is real up to the disengagement agreement of 2005, controlled this border. under an agreement with egypt after the camp david peace accords. we controlled this part which is called the philadelphia quarter. right down to the red sea. this was our border. while there was i would say minimal amount of terrorism, it did not face a big problem. here is the gaza strip enlarged. this is the situation in gaza before the disengagement of 2005 and the gaza strip is firmly under israeli control. we controlled the maritime

border. you cannot smuggle in weapons. they tried but we stopped it. you control the land border. and you control this border between the sinai desert, egypt and gaza. the gaza strip. this is the philadelphi tour door. this is the rafah crossing. controlled by the idf. look at the distances from gaza. it is four miles to another city where i visited the bereaved family yesterday. it is a population of 170,000 people. they are four miles away. some of our communities like one that is hardest hit is one mile away. as long as we control this, these communities, sometimes they were harassed by this rocket or the rocket but it was

marginal. we control the security situation. but something happened in 2005. israel unilaterally disengaged from gaza. it took out everything. it took out the army. it stripped, uprooted communities. took out 10,000 people. the army left of the philadelphi cora door. here is what happened -- cora ridor. operation by iran, delivered by a here's what happened. that philadelphi corridor became completely porous. the other borders controlled by us. once this was perforated, even though the policy of egypt was to prevent it, it did not necessarily work. it did not succeed. once we left our side of the

philadelphi corridor, rockets went in. missiles went in. drones. went in. ammo went in. weapons manufacturing equipment went in. tunnel drilling equipment came in. once we got out, once we left the philadelphi corridor, i ran could carry out its plan to turn gaza into a terrorist enclave that would endanger not only the communities around it but would endanger tel aviv, jerusalem, the entire country of israel. it became a huge terrorist base because we left that corri dor. so we vowed. you have to understand the centrality of the philadelphi corridor two the arming of gaza, to the arming of hamas and this all lead to the october 7

massacre which hamas has proudly vowed to do again and again and again. we vowed they will not be able to do it. we said as far as gaza is concerned, three or goals. the first goal is to destroy hamas military and governing capabilities. the second is to free our hostages. the third is to ensure gaza never again poses a threat to israel. all three of those goals go through israel's control of the philadelphi corridor. if you want to destroy hamas abilities, you cannot let hamas rearm. you cannot -- it is not only to prevent them from terrorizing us, attacking us. . it is to prevent,'s or any other terrorist organization from

terrorizing the people of gaza. gaza cannot have a future if gaza remains porous and you can enable rearmament of terrorists through the philadelphi corridor . the second thing is to release the hostages. you cannot prevent if you leave this corridor, you cannot prevent hamas from only smuggling weapons in, you cannot prevent them from not smuggling terrorists out. it is walking distance. they can easily smuggle hostages out here through the sinai desert in egypt. it is -- the distance is meters away. they cross. they don't even have to go underground. they disappear. they end up in iran or in yemen. they are gone forever. you need something to squeeze them. to prevent them.

to put pressure on them to release their many hostages. if you want to release the hostages, you have got to control the philadelphi corridor . the third goal of ensuring we prevent gaza from being again a threat to israel, it is clear gaza must be demilitarized etiquette only be demilitarized if the philadelphi corridor remains under firm control and is not a supply line for armaments and terror equipment. i think that is clear to most israelis, to all israelis. a question has arisen. that may be the case. aside from what i said that they could smuggle the terrorists out, come back, i want to show you what they have got under gaza.

i want to show you that. this is what they have under the philadelphi corridor so you understand the supply lines we are talking about. look at the engineering. dozens of such tunnels underneath the philadelphi corridor. to give you an impression of the size of these things, this is a soldier. this is a tunnel. you can drive a truck through this. here is a truck. orders a humvee. this is a huge problem. now you're just going to walk away. we have to control it. once you see this, you understand that. the next question is you leave and come back. that is what they tell us. we will have complete international legitimacy to come back.

sorry. we have gone down that route. we are down that route when we left lebanon. people said you can leave lebanon. you can come back. the first time they fire a rocket, you can come back. . the world will support you. it did not. we have been out of lebanon for 24 years. they said the same thing when we left gaza in the disengagement. they said you can leave and the first rocket, the prime minister said this to me. the first rocket above ground or below ground, will be able to go back in. and has been 20 years. we have not gone back in. you all know and understand the international community including friendly countries under enormous mastic pressure because of the propaganda leveled against israel, there will be enormous international pressure not to come back. what is their message? end the war.

when we want to come back and resume, we will pay an exorbitant price in many fields including in the lives of our men to come back. it is not just a military question. it is a military, political, strategic question. we make that decision. we are not going to leave. 42 days. i don't want to leave in order to come back in when i know we did not come back in. it is not going to take another 24 years to come back in. god knows what price we will have. how many more massacres, new more kidnappings. how many more hostages. how many more rapes. it is not going to happen. so people said if you stay, this will kill the deal. and i say such a deal will kill us. and it will not the a deal that way. this is a false narrative.

and willing to make a deal. i made one already. one that brought back 150 hostages. 117 alive. i am committed to returning the remaining 101. i'm doing everything i can. but leaving philadelphi does not advance hostages. they will give a minor part if they give anything. keep the rest. you know when they started giving us hostages? when we went in to philadelphi. when we went into the rafah crossing. that is when they felt the pressure. as long as they did not feel the pressure, they would not do it. the first deal we got was the result of our invasion. the military pressure we put in. they gave us the hostages.

after that, they thought, we will have the international pressure turn on israel so we will not have to make any concessions. but after rafah, their tone changed. if we leave rough out, if we leave the philadelphi corridor, there will not be any pressure. we will not get the hostages. i said i'm willing to make a deal. the real obstacle to making a deal is not israel. it is not me. it is hamas. it is sinwar. on april 27, i put forward a proposal by israel which secretary blinken called extremely generous. on may 31, having met blinken again, i said we agreed to the

u.s.-backed proposal and hamas refused. on august 16, the u.s. brought forth what they call the final bridging proposal. we accepted. hamas refused. on august 19, secretary blinken said israel accepted the u.s. proposal. now hamas has to do the same. on august 20, a week ago, the deputy cia director said israel showed seriousness. now hamas must make the deal. this was last week. so i ask you, what has changed? ? what has changed in this week? what has changed is that they murdered six of our hostages in cold blood. now the world will seriously demand israel make concessions

after this massacre? what message does this send to hamas? i will tell you what the message is. murder more hostages, you get more concessions. . but is not only illogical, it is not only immoral, it is downright insane. it is not going to happen. we have redlines. before the murder. they have not changed. we will hold to them. we also have flexibility. i will tell you one thing. hamas will pay for this. that you can be assured. we are firm on our redlines including the philadelphi corridor for the reasons i describe here. i am flexible where i can be. i am firm when i have to be. i think there is a possibility of getting this deal if we stick to the strategy. i said before we have 150

hostages out because we combined a firm stance with military pressure. and i said to hamas after that -- that hamas relied on international pressure but as it weekend and we went into route 5 and the philadelphi corridor. they were beginning to. walk the condition they said they would never accept his we must commit to getting out of gaza and enabling hamas to take over gaza again. end the war, get out, let them retake gaza. . but obviously something we could not do. they started caving in after we took the philadelphi corridor. and they started backing up. you know why they started backing up? they waited for around to start a journal or with israel. that did not -- a general war with israel. and they went into hezbollah to start a general war. that did not happen either.

now they will resort to the final tactic. they are going to sow discord and create international pressure again using the hostages even after the merger. this is something that is not new because they started this a year ago. this is their tactic. this is hamas for psychological warfare, founding underground command post on january 9. right after the beginning of the war. 2024. this is the original document in arabic. our soldiers found it. here is what it said. push photos and videos of hostages. put it out in the media because that creates enormous psychological pressure. who is not affected by it? any human being seeing these souls, these girls, these people from those dungeons, you are

affected by it. increase psychological pressure on defense minister. continue blaming netanyahu. fourth, claim ground operation will not release hostages. that is not only their talking point. it is their strategy. their idea, this will so internal discord and increased international pressure on israel. that is what they hope to achieve. and they think this will happen. it will not happen. i can tell you why it won't happen. i can tell you why they will fail. because overwhelmingly, the people of israel are united. the understand everything i said here. overwhelmingly you should know that. it is important. the second thing is we are committed to achieving our goals. all three goals. destroy hamas military and

governing capabilities, releasing all our hostages and ensuring that gaza does not become a threat to israel anymore. all of these require standing firm to ensure the achievement of these goals. with god's help and people's will, will achieve all goals. >> thank you. the mother of -- can you hear me? >> sure. >> the mother of one of the murdered hostages says you sacrificed her on the altar of the philadelphi corridor. if the price of your refusal to withdrawal from the egypt gaza border is more hostages are killed, is that a price you're

willing to pay and the price that people of israel will accept? >> i can understand the great torment that the mother of this murdered hostage feels and i understand her rage. i can understand her sorrow. i am not going to stand in judgment with the. i'm going to talk about the fact i'm committed to getting all of them out. i got more than half out. more than half of the hostages alive out because we played the pressure point. if we leave the pressure, we will get no one out. i'm committed to two things right here. the first one is to achieve the release of the hostages. the second is to protect the security of israel and to make sure we have no more hostagetaking. no more murders. no more rapes. no more rocketing of israel. both of them. this and this together. that is what i'm going to do.

that is what i'm committed to do. >> if i can follow up, the philadelphi corridor is so critical as you say, why is it you left it seven or eight months into the offensive before seizing it? >> it was critical also to destroy hamas, to kill 20,000 of their operatives. to kill their senior military commanders. to get gaza city. to get the hospital which is a major headquarters. to get khan yunis. to get the central camps. and to get rafah. this was the military plan that the military and the political echelon agreed-upon. i was never going to leave rafah alone. you know that. i was also not going to leave philadelphi alone. i said it is critical we not leave philadelphi. i said we have to get there so we got there.

it was a progression of military advancement that produced the results. once we are in now we leave? we leave, we will not come back. everybody here knows it. everybody knows what pressure will be brought on us so we don't come back. what price we will have to pay if we do want to come back. it is not going to happen. we will be there. despite the pressure. >> prime minister, cnn. i spoke to a former hostage who had been held in gaza. she told me she believes you are sentencing her husband to die by prioritizing philadelphi corridor over a deal. she has this question for you. is keith going to come home alive or dead? >> i will do everything to make sure keith and the other hostages come back. i'm telling you if we relieve the pressure, if we get out of

the philadelphi corridor, we are not going to get the hostages back. we are going to condemn a lot of them to failure. we could get a few out. they will give us that. but they will leave a lot with them. we don't. -- we won't have the pressure point. something else will happen. we not be able to come back. we will not release all the hostages and we won't achieve the defenses we must have to prevent more october 7 again and again and again. that is my responsibility. i can understand the torment of families. none of them believe we will get the hostages in the first batch either. none of them few. quite a few of them did not believe it. and they came and they said you have to get them out. you are not going to get them out. you have to make this concession or that concession. i did not make those concessions and we got them out. it is very hard. i don't stand in judgment of these tormented souls because they are undergoing in agony that is hard to fathom and i

understand. what a responsibility of leaders is not merely to share the sentiment, the emotion but also to exercise judgment, the correct judgment to make sure these horrors do not happen again. i believe our strategy is the best way to achieve both goals. both releasing, freeing the hostages and ensuring gaza never poses a threat to israel again. >> within 40,000 palestinians have been killed in gaza. a majority of whom are civilians. these numbers are from the palestinian demonstration of health. they are backed up by the united states. and metairie conditions in gaza have to grated so much that diseases like polio and have a tight is a are spreading. we have seen countless children the orphaned. we have seen kalus mothers lose their children. how much is too much? at what point is it time to end this war?

>> will end the war when we achieve our goals of making sure hamas can't repeat such atrocities. we are fighting this war and a just war with just means. with means that no other army has ever fought. no other army. has taken the precautions israel has taken. sometimes at great risk to make sure we minimize the number of casualties. you talked about polio. we enabled massive vaccination of polio. we want to percent of the people of gaza vaccinated. 200,000 i think were vaccinated today. we put in a million tons of food. a million tons of aid. . 700,000 tons of food. that is unheard of. because we think every civilian death is a tragedy. for hamas, every civilian death is a strategy. for as it is a tragedy. we have taken precautions to avoid civilian deaths that no

army on earth has taken. we have issued millions of text messages, millions of flyers, underage of thousands of phone people. we lose the element of surprise. as a result of that, in the most densely packed urban warfare theater in history where you have 35,000 thomas terrorists, 50 meters above ground, 50 meters below ground and in the most intricate and complex underground terror tunnel network on earth, we have been able to achieve the lowest ratio of civilians to combatants death in the history of modern urban warfare. it is 121 even by the numbers of the palestinian health ministry because we have killed probably around 18,000 terrorists. no less than 17,000. the ratio is about 121.

recently, it has gone down precipitously. you know when? we went into rafah. you will remember what the international community and the international press many of you reported before that. you said they are going to be stuck there. that 1.4 million people in gaza moved from the north to the south. you will have thousands, 20,000 killed. you will have a catastrophe. a human terrain catastrophe. they will have no place to go. no food to eat. now report honestly. because here is what happened. they are all left. they went to the humanitarian zone which is two miles away. left. on the beach. they have tense. resupplied tense for 150,000 people. eight agency supplied the rest. some carry their own tents.

resupplied water lines, sewage lines, food. there is more to be done. medical. now we know how many people were killed. how many terrorists because we counted them. we just passed 2000. terrorist. body counts of terrorist. the people left. how many civilians died? i asked the commander. the commander of the division that did the rough operation and the philadelphi corridor. he said prime minister, there are hardly any civilian deaths because everybody left. they he did our warnings but he said there were probably two dozen and most of them had occurred when one of our bombs hit a hamas ammunition depot planted inside a residential area. 40 people died.

20 were terrorists. 20 were civilian. he said that is most of the deaths. that is the lowest ratio of noncombatants to combatants in the history of urban warfare. that is it. now report honestly. because you accuse us of something that is outrageous. the accusations against us are outrageously false. humanitarian aid. a million trucks a day. a million tons of aid. 700,000 tons of food. a deliberate starvation policy. you can say anything. it does not make it true. you repeat a lie over and over again, it assumes the cachet of self-evident truth but it is false. something no other army has done in history and we will continue to do that. i'm not going to change my policies. humanitarian policies,

vaccination policies, combat policies to minimize civilian casualties. >> bbc news. mr. prime minister, antony blinken said he heard directly from you that you had endorsed a clear schedule and location for the withdrawal of troops. did you tell him that you would withdraw troops from the philadelphi corridor at any point in the deal? >> no, i said -- i think you are conflating two things. number one, i agreed to reduce the number of troops along the philadelphi corridor. we don't need a division and a half on this corridor. they can protect themselves and prevent the smuggling of terrorists on the outside and keep the corrido in tactr -- corridor in tact.

i said we can reduce the number of troops and we did. everything they are asking is what happens in phase two. we are talking about phase one, 42 days. somewhat reduced presence because we don't need as large a force. we agreed to begin discussions about a permanent cease-fire. the conditions we shall have for a permanent cease-fire must include a situation where the philadelphi corridor cannot be perforated. somebody has to be there. somebody has to -- i don't care. bring me anyone. who will actually show was not on paper, not on words, not in slide but on the ground day after day, week after week, month after month that they can actually prevent the recurrence of what happened before. we are open to consider it. i don't see that happening.

until that happens right ash i don't see that happening right now. and until that happens, until that happens, we are there. we want to ask another question but go ahead. >> premised or, elizabeth palmer from cbs. president biden said you were not doing enough to reach a hostage deal. how do you interpret that and what is your response? >> i think i've already answered that. i'm just talking about the facts. just the facts. i said in april we gave an extraordinary. generous offer not my words, secretary blinken. on may 31, we accepted the american proposal. hamas refused. on august 16, we accepted the second american proposal, the final proposal. we accepted. hamas again refused.

just last week as i said, the deputy cia director said israel has been serious about the negotiations. hamas has not. i have gone out of my way. . i have given leeway to negotiating teams five times. i have areas of flexibility. where i have to be firm and firmware i can be flexible and flexible. but in fact the obstacle has been hamas from the beginning. everybody knows that. secretary blinken said that. others said that. we all know that. should we do more? we have a saying in hebrew. i will translate. the test of results. we released more than half of the hostages. . a lot more than half of the living hostages. as far as i'm concerned, there is still a test to be done. this will do more.

i am committed to getting them out, all of them. all of them. we will get them out. and the right combination of military pressure, negotiating pressure and negotiating flexibility where we can be. that is the truth. i would direct the pressure and the rich where it belongs on those who took the hostages, those which -- those who keep them under the dark dungeons and those who massacred them in cold blood. it is hamas. >> thank you, thank you, thank you. bloomberg. >> dan williams from bloomberg. back in april, you said israel was but a step away from victory. month later, you national security advisor said the war would last into 2025. now a few months on, where do things stand? ? when will this war end and a related question please. your ago you were fitted with a

pacemaker. at times you were fitted with a halter to monitor the pacemaker. you said yesterday you sleep two hours a night. >> that i say two hours a night -- did i say two hours a night? >> that may have been in just. in you are under enormous stress. you believe you are in position to sustain the management of this war? >> your first question was? >> first question was what the timeline for the were given you said in april you were a step away from victor and a month later you national security advisor said it would last into the coming year. >> thank you. . what i meant to say is we are a step away from the critical thing that will pave our way to victory. i did not think we could have this picture if we did not go into rafah. i withstood quite a bit of international pressure and american pressure. i thought there is no way we can end this war without it for the reasons i explained so i did it. we did indeed complete this

task. we are in position to destroy hamas militarily. there is still work to be done to destroy its governance capability. i don't want to run gaza. i want to take away from hamas the key thing they have other than the military which we are destroying. wicked -- we are killing senior commanders. we are destroying their tunnels. we are destroying weapons manufacturing capability. they don't have any cash. we found millions and millions in cash in these tunnels. they don't have any more cash. part of the reason they are squeezed is because we controlled their money machine which is the rafah crossing. we are choking them. there is one thing they have which is the distribution of food. they basically -- we let the trucks come in. we let all those trucks come in. hamas strategy is to steal, hoard and gouge. that is what they do. they take the food.

they take it to exorbitant prices. they still the food. charge exorbitant prices from gaza. from the gaza population. that is how they continue to -- they hope to continue to survive. we have to take that away from them. i don't want to run gaza i don't want to administer gaza. i want to take this away from them. we are well ahead in our program for victory which we will achieve then we were a few months ago. when i said what i said, i was right. the second question you ask is how long can you do this. as long as it takes to achieve this victory. i think we are getting a lot closer. as long as the people of israel and trust it to me. as far as my health is concerned, it is fine. >> i don't know if we can see the map of israel again.

>> go ahead. show it. >> you said at the beginning -- the slightly wider one. that wider -- a bit wider. reset of your speech hamas and others in the middle east want to wipe israel off the map. you have literally wiped the west bank off that map. is that official policy now that the west bank does not exist? >> i did not include the dead sea. it is not shown on the map. i did not show the jordan river. it is on this map. >> there's or geographical features. this is a population. >> i was talking about gaza. there is a whole issue. a whole issue of what to do, how to achieve peace between us and the palestinians. i did. not get into that that is another press conference. i will be happy to do it. to wipe out the misconceptions and the slanders and lies directed at us. we don't intend to drive these people away. they want to drive us away.

it is a big difference. everyday they target us. you know what they teach in the schools in the pa schools? they teach exactly the same thing, the same textbooks, the same textbooks here in the pa schools. same thing. israel has to be destroyed. kill as many jews, the more israelis you kill, the more you get paid. there is a difference in strategy. hamas believes the way to destroy israel is throughout terror, military confrontation backed by around. but it's all part of the iranian access. the palestinian authority believes the way to do it is by icc. having absurd charges leveled at israel. enormous pressure to drive israel to indefensible boundaries where the boundaries would be right here right next

to tel aviv. that is it. 8, 10 miles from the sea. there is a difference but the goals are the same. i did not show that but if you want, press conference i guarantee you can ask all the questions you want and i will give you the facts that your readers and viewers do not get in this horrible harangue of this one democracy fighting this just war with just means against the most horrendous savages on the planet and israel is being condemned. israel is being slandered. this is something that not only affects the jewish people. 80 years after the holocaust when our enemies are openly declaring they will make another holocaust. it also affects a believer democracy fighting the battle of all democracies against these barbarians.

so, yes, i will be happy to talk about the west bank and the palestinian authority, you name it. in fact, i will let you name it. because one thing i do not fear is test questions, and i hope you accept some direct answers. reporter: prime minister netanyahu, first time i came here as a correspondent, it was 2007. i was here for seven years and i came back right before the elections. i find it hard to recall a speech in which you mentioned the philadelphia corridor. at least give it a lot of importance. why suddenly in the last few weeks it seems the future of israel depends on that? pm netanyahu: netanyahu has not

mentioned the philadelphia corridor. here's what i said. ok? when i resigned from ariel sharon's government can i couldn't agree with that policy so i resigned as finance minister. i said to him in the resignation letter, i said, at least you should stay in the philadelphia corridor because otherwise this is going to become hamastan. which it did. and i documented but before that,, too. now you talk about this more, right? we had a lot of discussions in security meetings about the philadelphia corridor, about the smuggling. what do we do about it? because the only way to deal with it really was to conquer gaza. but we know we didn't have need of the domestic legitimacy nor the international legitimacy to do it. look how much problems we have now after the worst savagery that was delivered to the jewish

people since the holocaust and we still have, look at all the questions you're asking me. the international pressure that is put on israel. so certainly we didn't have legitimacy before the october 7 massacre. so what we did was basically attack hamas every time, attack it again and again and again, i as prime minister led three of these operations in which we killed 6000 of their terrorists. we killed their military chief. and others. but the only way we could deal with the philadelphia corridor was to conquer gaza. and the only way we could conquer gaza was to have the legitimacy that we lacked until october 7th happened. once it happened, he went into gaza and guess what, the first time i talked about the philadelphia corridor, i called it the southern barrier. we need a saturn barrier.

ok? we discussed two possibilities, one, the philadelphia corridor, and one or two kilometers north of that. it's very important. but it is clear you have to stop. can you show that map again of the perforation? yeah. no, no, not that one. we have to stop this. if we don't stop this, we have achieved nothing. so i spoke about it publicly, first time in november when the war began. that was my first public statement. now you should check my research, just by punching up, i found eight references every month about the sudden corridor. i can tell you that in our internal discussions in the war cabinet and in the general cabinet, i talked about it a lot. so here again is a misrepresentation of fact. we are using this as a pretext. this is just a political ploy. it's not a political ploy. you have to be blind, not to see

this. i'm not blind nor are the people of israel. they overwhelmingly support keeping this corridor in her hand because they understand this is something that we must do both to achieve our goal of winning the war, but also to put pressure to release of hostages. but i can tell you, it is not the first time i have talked about it. reporter: patrick, "new york times". thank you, mr. prime minister for this press briefing. if the philadelphia corridor was so important to you, why did the israeli army not head for it first when you invaded gaza in late october? if it was so important to you, why was it not even mentioned in the may 27 proposal that israel made to the negotiators? if the disengagement from gaza was so important to you, why did

you personally vote for it at that time before leaving government? and finally, you mentioned israel not intending to administer gaza after the war. does that mean you can unequivocally rule out settling because with israeli civilians? prime minister netanyahu: i don't have my pen here, if you give me a pen, i can write down all of these questions. thank you. i explained that it was important enough that it was clear we were going to conquer all of gaza, that we didn't have a choice. but the sequencing, and it will not get into the military consideration which the cabinet was uniform on that, we didn't know what exactly would happen.

we knew that there was a vortex, a main nerve center in gaza city around the shifa hospital and elsewhere. and the progression that was there was supposed to continue with one fell swoop. we had a lot of obstacles to get down to rafah and the philadelphia corridor. but the idea was to do it very fast, and we did, and once we have done this, -- why it was important for you to vote for the disengagement? number one, i voted in the knesset, i was finance minister. i wanted to do important reforms and revolutionize the israeli economy, basically free-market reforms. and i was in a quandary because i wanted to complete those reforms, but i knew that once the government actually votes to tear out the communities and to get out, that's it. my reforms would be stymied.

israel will not become the technological and economic powerhouse that it became. so the question was, and the government didn't quite do this, they were careful, the government of which i was a part of, they said, ok, we haven't yet decided whether we would leave. what we will do is create the possibility by the knesset bills that if we decide to leave, there will be compensation for those who leave. that was the famous vote that people show on television. so when the actual vote came in the cabinet to leave, i said, you have to stay in there. you cannot leave the philadelphia corridor. and i resigned from the government. so i voted against it. that was important. you asked another question. reporter: why wasn't it mentioned in the may 27 proposal?

[indiscernible] pm netanyahu: well, the may 20 seven is really proposal and the may 27 american proposal said -- they didn't contradict in any way on going into the rafah crossing. we talked with the americans in a number of conversations that we have to deal with the southern barrier, otherwise we will not be able to deal with it. that there is no contradiction between that and the may 27th proposal and we are quite clear about it and i think the americans know our position quite well. as far as reselling, i think it is realistic. i set it in front of my cabinet and i haven't changed my view. >> thank you. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] reporter: [inaudible]

sorry. good evening. hello? can you hear me? mr. prime minister, we have heard a lot today about the philadelphia corridor. i have one very specific question. pm netanyahu: what do you represent? reporter:rt, russian television. was israeli control over the philadelphia corridor ever mentioned in any of the versions of the deal that hamas accepted. and today, is it the only obstacle to the deal, the only disagreement between the site, or are there other disagreements? thank you very much. pm netanyahu: there is a premise in your question that is wrong. hamas did not accept the deal. on the may 27 proposal they had 29 changes, which effectively initiated them from any meaning. it was a rejection.

in fact, a detailed rejection of the deal. when we accepted it as is, we didn't make any changes and didn't read any new conditions. anything contradicting anything that a said there -- hamas basically wiped the floor with it, they didn't accept that, they didn't accept the bridging proposal. and yahya sinwar's deputy said two days ago, we remain steadfast. they did not accept it. you want the facts? the fact is they rejected -- they said they accepted it, but they have 29 corrections. that's like the german government saying we accept the american proposal, but we are going to stay in berlin and we will control germany and we can resupply ourselves, but we have accepted your proposal. it doesn't mean anything.

they put in 29 corrections that essentially was a sound and detailed rejection of the deal. i don't care, you know how they frame it for public purposes. it's meaningless. we know the truth. and again, they flatly rejected the bridging proposal. and yesterday they flatly rejected again. what did he say? he said israel has to get out everything,, including the philadelphia corridor, and we can arm ourselves and do october 7 again and again and again. so it is not that they accepted it. your second question is -- reporter: is the philadelphi corridor the only obstacle? pm netanyahu: it's not. we have the philadelphi corridor, we have, what is the ratio of hostages to civilians -- to terrorists who are released? do you have veto power over these terrorists, because some of them committed the worst atrocities you can imagine. should they come back to judea

or samaria or should we take them out of the country? or so on and so on. hamas has rejected everything. we are trying to find some area to begin negotiations and they refuse to do that. i hope that changes because i want those hostages out, i want those families, i want those mothers to see their loved ones, i don't want to see a repetition of what i saw in ashkelon. these portraits -- i want them to have happiness just like the ones we were able to rescue. we brought 117 people alive. and by the way i insisted in the first deal, we talked about 50. i said, no, we are going to get 30 more out. i talked to president biden and he helped and i appreciate it. and we brought it up from 50 to 80.

that is 80 souls that came back to life. their families came back to life. so, i will do everything i can to make sure we get these people out. but the pressure should be directed where it belongs. it is not on israel. it is on hamas. thank you all. you've been very, very patient. [reporters asking questi